... No, I won't. Good-bye!"
The door of the room softly opened. A knock had preceded the entrance of
Ellen, but Burns hadn't heard it. He eyed her defiantly.
"Do you feel much, much happier now?" she asked with a merry look.
"If I don't it's not the fault of the escape valve. I pulled it wide
open."
"I heard the noise of the escaping steam." She came close and stood
beside him, where he sat, half dressed and ruddy in his bathrobe. He put
up both arms and held her, lifting his head for her kiss, which he
returned with interest.
"That's the first nice thing that's happened to me to-day--since the one
I had when I left you this morning," he remarked. "I'm all in to-night,
and ugly as a bear, as usual. I feel better, just this minute, with you
in my arms and a bath to the good, but I'm a beast just the same, and
you'd best take warning.... Oh, the--"
For the telephone bell was ringing again. From the way he strode across
the floor in his bathrobe and slippers it was small wonder that the
walls trembled. His wife, watching him, felt a thrill of sympathy for
the unfortunate who was to get the full force of that concussion. With a
scowl on his brow he lifted the receiver, and his preliminary "Hello!"
was his deepest-throated growl. But then the scene changed. Red Pepper
listened, the scowl giving place to an expression of a very different
character. He asked a quick question or two, with something like a most
unaccustomed breathlessness in his voice, and then he said, in the
businesslike but kind way which characterized him when his sympathies
were roused:
"I'll be there as quick as I can get there.
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